


shine a light on the good things that we did

by youremyqueen



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Canon - Manga, Dysfunctional Relationships, M/M, Multi, Originally Posted on Tumblr, POV Male Character, POV Third Person, Polyamory, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-04 05:37:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1077162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youremyqueen/pseuds/youremyqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He’s not going to come out. If he was he would have done it by now, so if you’re only here to see him, you should probably just go."</p>
            </blockquote>





	shine a light on the good things that we did

**Author's Note:**

> this was written maybe five months ago? i have such such a limited view of the canon. i've read like less than half of the manga, seen various episodes, and the abridges series. take this whole thing with a grain of 'i have no idea what i'm doing' salt.

_"I've decided to burn everything,"_ Marik says, only he says it in Arabic and to the skyline over Ryou's head, and Ryou doesn't speak Arabic and doesn't want to be presumptuous, so he just stays silent and counts his breaths and waits patiently for Marik to leave the room before he stands up to dress.

Marik doesn't leave the room.

"I have to go to school," Ryou says quietly after time has passed. It's dim and cool and it would be easy to fall back to sleep, if not for the other body in his bed.

"Mmhhh," Marik says, which isn't much to work with, and continues his intense study of the ceiling plaster.

"Are you waiting for… something?" Ryou asks, feeling awkward, like an intruder in his own house. If he's honest, having Marik here helps to brighten up the place, even if all he does is drink the orange juice and get blond hairs all over the bathroom and drop into silence in the middle of almost every conversation.

"What would I be waiting for?"

"I don't know," Ryou says, but of course he does know, and he's angry at himself for being afraid to say so. Abruptly, he sits up. "He's not going to come out. If he was he would have done it by now, so if you're only here to see him, you should probably just go."

The words rush over each other and he is immediately both very sorry and strangely relieved to have said it straight out, instead of watching his shoes and stuttering out apologies for his existence.

Marik's lips twitch and he does finally look at Ryou, but the oft-dreamt of, _'No, of course I care about you in your own right and completely independent from him,'_ never comes. Instead his hair flutters pretty in his eyes, catching the pale light from the window, and he says, "Maybe he's asleep," with a quiet, unfathomable sort of humor.

Ryou blinks. "I don't think he does that."

And then there it is, the laughter ringing in him, crawling down his sides and sweeping into every part of his head, and he has to put in considerable effort to keep his lips sealed and his eyes flat as Bakura rises heavily to the surface. Marik is studying him with considering eyes but, of course, he doesn't say anything.

The whisper that clings to the back of his teeth, however, does.

_'As if there is any part of you that is independent from me,'_ it says, and he finds his throat locking up to keep down the laughter.

He watches Marik smile and register the shift, moving himself closer, eating up Ryou's airspace and blocking all the exits with his pretty limbs and smiling eyes. "Hello," he says.

Ryou puts a hand to his chest, keeping him off. "Just - _don't._ " He swallows, breathing with the tide that swirls in him and trying not to be swirled away with it. "I wish you - I wish you'd both just leave me be. Sometimes. Only sometimes, but I - it's always one or the other and I really, I'd really rather be alone every once in a while."

It comes out muted, a distinct sentiment from what he'd initially tried to communicate, but equally as accurate in describing what he feels. He feels so much these days, bones on the left and flesh on the right and laughter all the way to the bottom. Every part of him is known and every part of him shrivels with it.

There are parts that grow, though. He knows how to stay up through the night and how to treat flesh wounds and what to order for dinner and where from and when it is safe to answer the door and when it is not. It is hardly ever safe. He is hardly ever anything but a pawn in someone else's war, a well-used vehicle with milage yet to go. To Bakura he is a toy and to Marik he is perhaps the same thing, only in kinder terms.

Marik, whose fine eyebrows rise with his every word and whose nose twitches in restrained glee. "And where would you have us go?" he asks. Bakura is still laughing in the background.

"Nowhere," Ryou sighs. "I know you can't." He smiles and he hopes it doesn't look too forced. "He's just very loud sometimes, is all."

"Where I grew up," Marik says, speaking more to the room at large - empty as it is - than he is specifically to Ryou, "you could hear the locusts screaming through the earth in the summer. I know noisy neighbors. If I ever saw one as a child, I would stomp on it until it died."

Ryou's waiting for more, for there to be a kind of punchline or lesson to the story, but Marik stops there, apparently distracted by the tickle of Ryou's hair, which he wraps a finger in and begins playing with lightly.

"Yes," Bakura whispers, from one ear to the other, _'I like to kill my neighbors, too. How charming.'_ There's vague disdain in his voice, because he loves to feign as much at everything Marik says, even though Ryou can feel him thrumming inside, can feel the spark up his spine and his manic appreciation for the whole situation.

Marik's fingers in Ryou's hair and Ryou's pale shoulders slumped in defeat. He feels warm breath on his neck and he doesn't know what he'd do without them - either of them.

Have friends, maybe.

Bakura's laughter spikes double at that thought and Ryou's sure that Marik notices his wince.

The warm tingle of the whisper against the shell of his ear sends his skin flushing quickly. _"I see what you are, Ryou. I like what you are, even all alone,"_ Marik says. But Ryou doesn't speak Arabic.

Bakura does. He laughs when Ryou stands from the bed, too flustered and too late for modesty, and laughs all the way down the hall and to the shower, where Marik's beauty products line the shelves, moved in one at a time, so that none of them had notched quite how things were shaping up until they'd already shaped.

He laughs again when Ryou steps out ten minutes later, cold and wet and wrapped in a towel. Marik is tripping through the kitchen, burning the eggs, and he flashes a smile when he sees him - _them_.

He's set the table for three.


End file.
